After an uprooted and unstable childhood in war-torn England, Bloom studied drama, which became her passion. She had her debut on the London stage when she was sixteen, and soon took roles in various Shakespeare plays. They included Hamlet, in which she played Ophelia alongside Richard Burton, with whom she would have a "long and stormy" first love affair. For her Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, critic Kenneth Tynan stated it was “the best Juliet I've ever seen.” And after she starred as Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire, its playwright, Tennessee Williams, was "exultant," stating, "I declare myself absolutely wild about Claire Bloom."

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Early life

Bloom was born as Patricia Claire Blume in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth (née Grew) and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales.[1] Her paternal grandparents, originally named Blumenthal, as well as her maternal grandparents, originally named Gravitzky, were Jewish immigrants from Byten, in the Grodno region of Russia, now in Belarus, Eastern Europe.[2]:1–2

After the Germans began bombing London during the Blitz in 1940, her family had a number of narrow escapes as bombs dropped close to their home. She and her brother John were sent to safety in the country, and then to the United States, where she spent a year living with an uncle. She recalls, "It was 1941; I was ten, John was nearly six. We were to sail from Glasgow in a convoy, on a ship that was evacuating children."[3]:26 During her year stay in Florida, she was asked by the British War Relief Society to help raise money by entertaining at various benefits, which she then did for a number of weeks. "Thus I broke into show business singing", she writes.[3]:30

Bloom, along with her mother and brother, next lived in New York for another eighteen months before returning to England. It was there that she decided to become an actress, after her mother took her to see the Broadway play, Three Sisters, for her twelfth birthday:

From then on I thought only of going into the theatre and playing in Chekhov. . . . Chekhov was moving. That's what I was looking for—something more moving even than my own plight as a little English girl driven from my home by the Gods of War.[3]:36

She debuted at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre as Ophelia to Paul Scofield's Hamlet. Bloom has written that during the production she had a crush on Scofield. As Scofield was happily married and the father of a son, Bloom hoped only, "to be flirted with and taken some notice of". She later recalled, "I could never make up my mind which of my two Hamlets I found the more devastating: the openly homosexual, charismatic Helpmann, or the charming, shy young man from Sussex."[2]:43

When asked about Claire Bloom years later, Scofield recalled, "Sixteen years old I think—so very young and necessarily inexperienced, she looked lovely, she acted with a daunting assurance which belied entirely her inexperience of almost timid reticence. She was a very good Ophelia."[5]

It was during the rehearsals for the play that Burton and Bloom fell in love and began a long love affair, initially non-sexual. The following year, she received great acclaim for her portrayal of Ophelia in Hamlet, starring Richard Burton, the first of many works by William Shakespeare in which Bloom would appear. Although Burton was at that time married to Sybil Christopher, fellow actor and friend of Burton, Stanley Baker, seeing how attracted he was to Bloom, would comment that he "thought that this might be the time when Rich actually left Sybil."[6] In his later years, Burton told his biographer, Michael Munn, "'I only ever loved two women before Elizabeth,' Sybil was one, Claire Bloom the other."[6]:52, 85

Bloom has appeared in a number of plays and theatrical works in both London and New York. Those works include Look Back in Anger, Rashomon, and Bloom's favourite role, that of Blanche, in a revival of the Tennessee Williams play, A Streetcar Named Desire, which played in London in 1974. Critic Clive Barnes described the play as a "notable example of what the classic revival should be - well groomed, but thoughtful, expressive, illuminating."[7] Another critic writes that Bloom's portrayal of Blanche featured "remarkable layers of vitality and tenderness," and playwright Tennessee Williams was "exultant," stating, "I declare myself absolutely wild about Claire Bloom."[7]

Bloom has also performed in a one-woman show that included monologues from several of her stage performances. She also starred in the 1976 Broadway revival of The Innocents.

Film

Her international screen debut came in the 1952 film, Limelight. She was chosen by Charlie Chaplin, who also directed, to co-star alongside him in Limelight, a film which catapulted Bloom to stardom, and remains one of her most memorable roles.[8] Biographer Dan Kamin states that Limelight is a similar story to Chaplin's City Lights, made twenty years earlier, in which Chaplin also helps a heroine overcome a physical handicap. In this film, Bloom plays a suicidal ballerina who "suffers from hysterical paralysis".[9]

with Charlie Chaplin in Limelight (1952)

The film had personal meaning for Chaplin as it contained numerous references to his life and family: the theatre where he and Bloom performed in the film was the same theatre where his mother gave her last performance;[citation needed] Bloom was directed by Chaplin to wear dresses similar to those his mother used to wear; Chaplin's sons and his half-brother all had parts.[10] Bloom states that she felt one of the reasons she got the part was because she closely resembled his young wife, Oona O'Neill.[11][12] In his autobiography, Chaplin writes that he had no doubt the film would be a success: "I had fewer qualms about its success than any picture I had ever made."[9] Chaplin explains his decision to make Bloom co-star despite this being her first film:

In casting the girl's part I wanted the impossible: beauty, talent, and a great emotional range. After months of searching and testing with disappointing results, I eventually had the good fortune to sign up Claire Bloom, who was recommended by my friend Arthur Laurents.[13][14]

Television

Bloom has appeared in numerous roles on television such as her portrayal of Lady Marchmain in Brideshead Revisited (1981).[8] In 1996, she wrote, "I still find it puzzling when I am told I played a manipulative and heartless woman; that is not how I saw her. Lady Marchmain is deeply religious, and her dilemma includes trying to raise a willful brood of children on her own, while instilling them with her rigid observance of the Catholic code. Sebastian is both an alcoholic and a homosexual, and from her point of view, he lives in a state of mortal sin. She has to fight for his soul by any means in her power, with the knowledge that her efforts may lead to his destruction. A born crusader, the Marchioness confronts her difficult choices head on; her rigidity of purpose, which I don't in any way share, is understandable in context. The aspect that rings most true is her sense of being an outsider, a Catholic in Protestant England. Not such a leap from being a Jew in Protestant England as one would imagine."[2]:162

In 2013, she appeared in the 6th series of ITV's Doc Martin as the estranged Mother of the title character.

In 2015 she appeared as Matilda Stowe in ITV's Midsomer Murders episode 17.4 "A Vintage Murder".

Personal life

Bloom has married three times. Her first marriage, in 1959, was to actor Rod Steiger,[8] whom she had met when they both performed in the play Rashomon. Their daughter is opera singer Anna Steiger. Steiger and Bloom divorced in 1969. In that same year, Bloom married producer Hillard Elkins.[8] The marriage lasted three years and the couple divorced in 1972. Bloom's third marriage on 29 April 1990, was to writer Philip Roth,[8] her longtime companion. The couple had one child together, Lawrence, who resides in NYC. The couple divorced in 1995.

Bloom has written two memoirs about her life and career. The first, Limelight and After: The Education of an Actress, was released in 1982 and was an in-depth look at her career and the film and stage roles she had portrayed. Her second book, Leaving a Doll's House: A Memoir, was published in 1996 and went into greater details about her personal life; she discussed not only her marriages but also her affairs with Richard Burton, Laurence Olivier, and Yul Brynner. The book created a stir when Bloom described her marriage with Philip Roth. Soon after, Roth wrote a "revenge novel" I Married a Communist (1998), in which the character of Eve Frame appeared to represent Bloom.[20][21]